Hating Me, Loving You
by The All-Seeing Sharingan
Summary: [Repost]He was sure that getting her to fall for him would be a snap. He couldn't have been more wrong. Rated T for language and mild suggestive themes. [DeiOC]
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note:_ I decided to take this entire story, originally called _From Hate To Love_, down and fix up a few things, starting with changing the title. I much prefer this title to the last.

Anything that is talking about _From Hate To Love_ is referring to this story. I'm just not going to bother taking down every single story that refers to it just so I can change a few lines.

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Hating Me, Loving You

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When she first joined us, I thought she was nothing more than some pushover who would be in and out within the week. The Akatsuki was a group of elite nukenin, and not just anybody could make it. She was eighteen, like most of us when we first joined, but she didn't seem to be anything special. So it was justified that I had no idea what our boss was thinking. Maybe he would use her as a decoy in his next plan, or as part of a training exercise. All I knew was that she wouldn't last.

At least, that was what I thought.

We first met in the main hall at our headquarters. Uchiha Itachi was there, and apparently he knew her, as he shot her dirty looks the entire time he stood there. They obviously weren't too fond of each other, I noted. Hoshigaki Kisame was also there, as was Sasori-danna, though he kept to himself, as always. Zetsu had showed up, much to my dismay. I never really liked him, and the split-personalities thing had always freaked me out a bit. She was a half demon, they said, easily identifiable by her aura, if you couldn't see her in the dim light of the candlelit hall. She looked mostly human, but the few demonic features were easily noticeable. The jet-black cat ears and tail gave it away at once, if you didn't look into her eyes first. A strange golden colour, they were, with slitted feline pupils. The fangs and blood-stained claws were a bit of a dead giveaway as well. Her raven-coloured hair was ridiculously long, past her waist at least, though it was kept up, tied with a blood-red elastic. She was from the Hidden Leaf Village, Konoha, as I could tell from the headband she wore, which now bore a large slash right across the symbol that had, until now, identified her as one of theirs. A new cloak, sleek black, with our signature red-and-white clouds, covered her clothes, so I couldn't quite see what she was wearing, but I didn't care. I never paid much attention to that sort of thing, nor to women in general. This one was no different from the other females who had tried to join our ranks. She was cocky, and didn't seem all that intelligent to me, as cats are supposed to. She didn't speak for a time, so I took that to mean she was timid as well, easily frightened. Everyone just looked her over, trying to judge exactly what could have been going through the boss' mind when he decided to let her become an Akatsuki. But questioning the Leader's judgement was never a good idea, so we kept our thoughts to ourselves.

Kisame was the first to speak to her. He put on that stupid fish-like grin of his and looked down at her, as she was a few inches shorter than he, and said, "You _do_ know about the initiation for women Akatsuki, right?"

Of course, there really _was _no initiation, and he must have figured she didn't know that.

She didn't react for a moment, acting as if he wasn't there, so he repeated the question.

_Leave it to Kisame to try to score with the new girl,_ I thought to myself, smirking at his lack of awkwardness in asking such a question.

I figured that she would either look horrified, blush profusely, or walk quickly away, completely mortified, but she did none of those things. Instead, she looked up, staring him straight in the eyes and snapped, "If you want your balls torn off and fed to the flytrap over there, keep talkin'."

Judging by the way the she was glaring at him, and by the fact that she wasn't at all fazed by the fact that he had his giant sword, Samehada, strapped to his back, I could tell she meant it, even if none of the others could.

Zetsu started talking to himself at this, muttering about how rude that comment was, and then about how he shouldn't let her get to him. I shook my head, wondering if he was stupid, or just plain crazy. Turning my attention back to Kisame and the new girl, I saw that she hadn't faltered, and was still glaring at him with intense dislike.

_Impressive,_ I thought, _that she isn't even startled._

"Oh, a fighter, are you?" Kisame said with a smirk. "I like them that way."

I could swear that her eyes flashed red for a split second as she told him, "If you say one more thing, you'll be too dead to care, got it?"

She sounded very dangerous, and I had to admit, I was starting to become interested in this easily annoyed woman. I could be pretty dangerous, myself, and I believed I may just have found a kindred spirit.

Uchiha rolled his eyes and muttered something barely audible, but I didn't bother to find out what it was. I had decided to introduce myself to our newest teammate.

Shoving Kisame aside, I rather nonchalantly said, "Leave the poor girl alone, un. The last thing she needs is to be hit on by something you'd find in cat food."

This was obviously the wrong thing to say, because in an instant, I was on the floor with her katana at my throat. "If you were trying to be funny, I didn't find that very amusing," she growled, pressing the tip of the blade even further up against my neck. "I may be a cat, but I'm far from the strays you find in back alleys. There's a big difference between regular cats and cat _demons_, got that?"

Sasori, who had, until now, been leaning against the opposite wall and saying nothing, came up beside her and took hold of her arm, moving it, and the sword, far enough away from me that I could back up a bit and stand without getting speared. I muttered my thanks and edged away from them both, getting as far away from her as I possibly could. It wasn't so much that I was afraid of _her_, as that I was afraid of _Sasori._ He was pretty frightening when he was angry, and I wouldn't want to get between those two, should they decide to fight.

"Don't bother with him, Kuro-san," he told her in that calm, emotionless voice of his. "He isn't worth your time or effort."

"Sasori-danna-" I began to whine, cut off when he shot me a glare that clearly said "Shut up if you don't want _me_ to kill you." The girl, Kuro, sheathed the katana when Sasori let go of her arm, and shot me a dirty look. "You got lucky this time, yaro, but next time, you won't be so fortunate," she hissed, and left the hall, leaving me staring after her.

_What is it about her that I find so intriguing? I have to have her,_ I thought, vowing to myself that from this moment on, my current project was to get Kuro to fall in love with me.


	2. Chapter 2

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Hating Me, Loving You

Chapter Two

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My first plan was simple enough. Women like to be given gifts, right? So I'd make something for Kuro out of the clay that I carried around. Normally, I only made explosives with that stuff, but how hard could it be to make a regular sculpture? Or even better, I could make a really big explosion! She seemed to be the type of girl who could appreciate that type of art, so why not give it a shot? Besides, it would be better than anything Sasori could do, should he become interested in her as well.

I prepared all of it a day early, putting a few different ores into the various bits of clay, so the explosions would have a bit more colour, kind of like fireworks. Iron powder, in particular, gives the explosions a nice red tinge, almost a bloody colour, a shade that I'm quite fond of, myself. I was so giddy that night, I could barely sleep. This plan would work wonders, I was sure. Ohhh, I was so good. She'd be head over heels for me in no time!

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I found her, by herself, in the nearby woods the next morning. She was standing, her eyes closed, her expression giving away no thoughts, in a small clearing in which nine targets were scattered about. Actually, it was almost as though she was meditating. Or waiting for something. Her cloak was tossed, rather carelessly, I thought, on the dew-streaked grass underneath an oak tree, and on top of it lay the same katana that had been at my throat the night before. I shuddered at the memory of the sharp blade against my skin, and I hoped this wouldn't end the same way. I looked away from it and back at her, now noticing two things I hadn't seen before. Firstly, she was actually wearing a _collar_. A black leather collar, as I gathered, with a small golden bell attached to it. Hadn't she said, just last night, that there was a huge difference between cats and cat demons, and here she was, wearing a cat collar? That was a bit hypocritical, if you asked me. And then, on the skin just below her right shoulder, there was a strange tattoo. A Roman numeral, as I could tell: Unlucky thirteen. I had no idea what its significance was, but I don't suppose it really mattered. Something to do with her past, most likely, and I wasn't going to ask, lest I want to be under that katana again.

All of a sudden, her eyes snapped open. As she crossed her arms in front of her, I saw three glittering silver shuriken in each hand, and my mind quickly put together what would happen next.

I barely managed to dodge them as they flew towards my head. Small as those throwing stars may be, they can do quite a bit of damage.

Well, she obviously knew I was there, so there was no point in staying hidden.

"You've got quite the arm there, un. Almost hit me," I said, trying to remain casual. Her glare didn't soften, though, and her tone was anything but kind when she spoke.

"If I had been aiming for you, dobe, I would have hit you," she snapped, moving past me and pulling the shuriken out of the tree that they had embedded themselves in and replacing them in the pouch on her leg. "I'm not exactly in the mood to feel Sasori-san's wrath. That's the only reason I haven't killed you already. But believe me, the second I get an excuse and a chance, you're dead meat."

I swallowed hard. She was actually serious about that.

"Why would you want to do that, un?" I asked her, raising an eyebrow. I wasn't actually amused, but I didn't want to look like I was afraid of her. I wasn't, okay?

Kuro shot a second glare at me, then turned her attention to tying her katana on her waist. Putting on her cloak, she looked me right in the eyes and icily said, "Let's see. Probably because-" she paused here to adjust her headband-"I just fucking don't like you."

_That's going to change,_ I thought to myself, barely able to keep from grinning.

That reminded me of what I had come here for in the first place, so I quickly regained my composure and gave a little smirk. This was definitely going to do it.

She glared at me again, something I was already used to. "What the Hell is _your_ problem, baka?" This only made me grin more. I put my hand into my clay-bag and pulled out one o f the explosives I had prepared the night before and nonchalantly asked, "You know that I'm the Akatsuki's explosives expert, right, un?" "Hn." A monosyllabic answer. She must have been annoyed, so I figured I had better hurry and catch her attention. "You want to see some of my work?" She shrugged, saying nothing else, but concentrating on something a few yards away. A few _hundred_ yards, actually, by the way she was staring, eyes narrowed, into the dense foliage ahead of her.

_Now or never,_ I told myself, and formed a small bird out of the clay in my hand. She looked over at it, raising an eyebrow. _Ah! She's interested!_ I smirked again, pleased with the apparent success of this plan.

The bird hopped off of my hand and onto her shoulder. I saw her eye twitch as she looked at it, annoyed. Was this her cat's blood kicking in?

It pushed off of her shoulder and flew around a bit before I, and she, I was sure, grew tired of watching it. I formed my signature seal and it exploded in a shower of clay shards and a puff of bloody red smoke. Kuro seemed uninterested. She hadn't said anything yet, anyway. And then I noticed she had burst into a coughing fit. Between coughs, she managed to get out a few words. "What was _in_ that thing!" I grinned sheepishly and said, "Oh, you know, this and that, un..." And then, with the venom practically dripping from her voice, she said, "There was iron powder in that, wasn't there?" I nodded nervously, for the first time afraid that she might harm me. "You idiot!" She yelled, moving as far away from the cloud of smoke as she could get. "I'm _ALLERGIC_ to iron powder!" Oh. Well. That explained a lot. "Gomen," I muttered, silently berating myself for losing this chance. She didn't hear me, though. She had already left, probably to a place with cleaner air.

"Plan A failed, then," I said bitterly, turning away from the debris from the explosion I had been so proud of before. Oh well. There was always tomorrow...

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_Author's Note_: Ahh. Deidara, you silly, silly boy. You made yourself look SO stupid just now. -gigglefit- Oh well. Keep at it. Even if you don't get her, you'll provide us, the author and her readers, with some good entertainment.

Deidara: That was so mean, un! How was I supposed to know that she's allergic to that stuff?

That's the kind of thing you find out before you try something like this, sweets.

Deidara: -immaturely sticks his tongue out- Doesn't matter. My next plan will work, un!

We'll see. Anyway, thanks for all your lovely reviews. Yes Kai-chan, you are VERY lazy, but that's okay, I love you anyway.

You see that little button there? The one that says "Review"? Give it a click please. It'd make this author a very happy person.


	3. Chapter 3

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Hating Me, Loving You

Chapter Three

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Kuro avoided me for a few days after the clay incident, though I can't understand why. It was an accident, so why would she stay away from me? At least it gave me enough time to come up with another plan and to figure out a few things.

She did a lot of suspicious things, even for one of us. Sometimes, when she thought nobody else was listening, I could hear her muttering something about "That one's on my list," or "This guy's next," and I couldn't understand what it meant. And other times, she would disappear without warning, sometimes for days on end, and when she came back, her claws would be stained with blood, and if anyone asked where she had been or what she had been doing, she just smirked and said nothing, looking very self-satisfied. We all had our secrets, I knew that. All of us knew it, and nobody asked the others anything about themselves. But for once, I was starting to get freaked out about what was up with the girl I was going after. Soon enough though, I'd find out exactly what was going on.

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Fortunately for me, Kuro had been assigned as a third partner to me and Sasori, at least for the time being, so she couldn't really avoid me too much. And almost immediately after she was put with us, she did her disappearing act and went off for a couple of days to who-knew-where.

So there we were, after her return, taking a break from work, much to Sasori's dismay. She was perched on a tree branch, like always, filing her claws into a sharper point, and I was on the ground, in the grass, preparing explosives. Sasori was off deeper in the woods, likely talking to Zetsu about the location of some Jinchuuriki or other, and scared the Hell out of me when he came up behind me and said, "Looks like the Kuro Shi brought down another one of his targets."

"AHH! Sasori-danna, don't do that, un!" At the moment, I was clinging to the same tree branch that Kuro was sitting on, having jumped into it when Sasori had started to speak. She let out an exasperated sigh and shoved me off, causing me to fall face-first into the dirt.

"Surrounded by idiots," I heard her mutter as she went back to filing her claws, though she had seemed somewhat irritated by what Sasori had said.

More out of wanting to stay where I was and not have to get up and start walking again, I pushed myself up out of the dirt, turned to Sasori and asked, "So where was it this time, un?"

"Just outside Sunagakure. Apparently, his target was in the Kazekage's personal guard, and since the other ones got in his way, he killed them, too," he answered in a bored tone, sitting down and leaning against a tree.

"And what makes you think that the Kuro Shi is necessarily male, huh?"

I looked up in surprise. It was the first time today that she had spoken directly to us, and before now, she hadn't seemed interested in talking about this guy.

Sasori shrugged. "I don't think that. For all we know, it could very well be a woman, but it's more likely to be a man."

I could swear I heard Kuro growl. "Oh yeah? Why's that?" Her signature deathglare was now aimed at Sasori, and I couldn't figure out why she was so annoyed.

"Most women really don't have the physical strength to mutilate the bodies of their victims the way the Kuro Shi does," he said, causing another growl to emit from Kuro's throat.

"Sexist little bastard," she muttered, and went back to her nails.

Maybe I should back this up a little and explain exactly who this "Kuro Shi" is.

The "Kuro Shi," or "Black Death," was the name given to a demon who mercilessly slaughtered countless families, and even entire sections of clans, for reasons completely unknown to anyone other than them. The nickname was given to the demon because they had killed so many people, it was reminiscent of the hundreds of deaths caused by the Plague two hundred years ago or so. This demon had a list of people that they had to kill, (all humans, strangely enough,) almost like some kind of assassin. Almost nobody had ever seen the demon's face and lived to tell about it, but the damage was clearly the work of a demon. Sometimes the bodies were charred and burned with flames from Hell itself, sometimes all the organs had been torn out, and sometimes, they were completely torn apart. More often than not, there were deep claw marks in the corpses, and on occasion, the Roman numeral "XIII" was carved into the flesh that remained. This demon was rumoured to be some kind of cat, and one or two people had reported seeing, on their right shoulder, and at their side, on the golden hilt of an intricately decorated katana, the very same number that they engraved into the remains of their victims: Unlucky thirteen. So it wasn't a surprise when the third nickname came up: the "Black Cat." The demon who carried that katana personified bad luck, people said, and many lived in terror, wondering if they would be the Kuro Shi's next victim.

Upon thinking of all this, something fell into place and clicked in my mind.

Kuro was a demon. Well, half-demon, but that was close enough. Most people couldn't tell the difference with just one glance, and that was all most of the Black Death's victims got. She had a katana just like the one people described. She had the tattoo as well, in the same place. She hated humans with a passion, as I had learned, and all of the Kuro Shi's victims had been human.

Could _she_ possibly be the Black Death?

It would explain why she often vanished right before the Kuro Shi took another victim's life, and returned immediately after. It would also explain why her claws were always stained or dripping with blood when she came back. And why she had been so angry with Sasori a moment ago for the comment he had made.

I looked up at her, noticing that she was glaring down at me, and for the first time, I was afraid of her. Not a lot. Hardly at all, actually, but the fear was still there.

"Deidara?"

I was snapped out of my trance by Sasori giving me an annoyed look and speaking to me as though I was a small child or just a moron.

"Get up, and let's go."

"But danna, I-"

"_Now,_ Deidara."

I pouted and did as I was told. Kuro leaped down from her branch and landed at Sasori's other side, giving me an exasperated look. It was better than her normal "I'm-going-to-murder-you-the-second-I-get-a-chance" look, but still not what I was after.

She and Sasori walked ahead of me, conversing in low voices about something, likely the Jinchuuriki we were after, while I remained lost in thought. Normally, I would have been jealous that she got on Sasori's good side so easily, when it took me nearly half a year to do it after I met him. But right now, I was plotting.

So, now that I knew Kuro was the Black Death assassin, was I going to give up?

If you think that, you must not know me very well.

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Wow. Deidara actually didn't make himself look stupid in this chapter.

Looking back over it, I realize that this one is a lot darker than the previous two, and I really like that. Normally, I don't like really dark fanfics/chapters, but this one is an exception. It's also not half as dark as I could have made it, had this been another story or whatever, like if it were a look into Kuro's backstory or whatever. Yes, I actually _have_ thought that far. She's actually a character I've put a lot of thought and work into, and I actually have a bio written out. Who knows? Maybe I will put up her backstory later. If you want me to, drop me a line and tell me so, and I'll see what I can come up with.

Again, sorry for the delay on this chapter, but as I said before, Anko (For the last time, that's my computer!) died on me, so I had to get all of her data transferred into her new body, which is what I'm writing on right now. And I also didn't like what I had, so I rewrote the entire thing from scratch, which produced something that I like much better now. So anyway, as I said, if you want me to write up Kuro's backstory, I'll do that, but I have to know how many people want me to do it. If nobody's interested, there's no point, right? And now, I have to go get my nails painted, because tomorrow, I'm going to a cosplaying event, and Itachi's nails won't paint themselves, now will they?

Oyasumi nasai!


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